


Behind the Camera

by LadySokolov



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Consensual Infidelity, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, uncharted 4 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 12:14:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7757479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySokolov/pseuds/LadySokolov
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You fall in love with Elena Fisher approximately two minutes after meeting her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Behind the Camera

**Author's Note:**

> An anon on tumblr asked for Elena/Reader, so here it is! :D

Even before you meet her in the flesh you know that Elena Fisher is probably one of the most beautiful people on earth. You’ve seen her a couple of times on television and in photographs in the newspaper, but the cameras really don’t do her any justice. Anyone can look pretty enough after a few hours in the makeup chair, but makeup can’t be responsible for the sparkle in Elena’s eyes, or the way the corners of her mouth twitch up in a genuine, stunning, heart-stopping smile as she reaches out to take your hand with her own and clasp it in greeting. You’ve caught glimpses of her a couple of times around the station, but she always seems to be rushing off somewhere, or spending long, usually dangerous stints in war torn countries overseas, so this is the first time you’ve gotten a really good look at her.

And _wow_ , she’s not even wearing makeup and she looks more beautiful than you think you ever could, even _with_ a few hours in the makeup chair.

“And this, I’m sure you know,” says Debbie, your manager, gesturing to the  blonde woman in front of you, “is Elena Fisher. The two of you are going to be working together.”

“Hi,” you say, putting your hand out to shake Fisher’s hand. Her grip is surprisingly firm despite her small build, and she smiles; not the fake, forced smile that you see so often on so many other reporters’ faces, but a genuine smile that makes your heart dance in your chest.

“I’m so sorry about what happened to Jeff,” you say, because that is the polite thing to say when you are replacing the recently deceased friend of your new co-worker. The smile immediately disappears from Fisher’s face though, and you hate yourself a little bit for that. Damn it, why did you have to go making her sad like that within seconds of meeting her? _Real smooth_ , you chastise yourself silently.

“He was a great guy,” you tell her. “I mean, I only really met him a couple of times because he was out in the field a lot, but he seemed really nice, and people always had good things to say about him... so...”

You’re rambling now. Well done. Way to make a good first impression.

“It’s all right,” Elena says, and she’s smiling again. She can probably tell that you’re floundering. There’s a reason you’ve always stayed behind the camera and let other, more charismatic people like Fisher stand in front of it.

“It’s fine,” Elena insists, undoubtedly able to tell that you’re still feeling incredibly awkward about the whole thing. “You’re right. He was a good guy, but he died doing what he loved, and well, when you’re chasing after a violent war criminal like Lazarevic then you sort of expect this sort of thing to happen. Well, maybe not expect, but you’re not really surprised when it does. Right now I’m just glad that the rest of us got out okay.”

Her eyes focus on some distant point in space for a moment, and you can tell that wherever she is, whatever she is thinking about, it is not confined to the mediocrity of the station.

“It must have been terrifying in Tibet,” you say, and it is enough to pull Elena out of whatever reverie she had sunk into.

“Terrifying?” she says thoughtfully, more to herself than to you. “I guess,” she concedes. “It should have been. At the time though it was just so intense that I didn’t really have time to be scared.”

“Didn’t you get injured as well? I heard some really worrying stories...”

“Oh, it was nothing,” she says. “Well, not nothing, but I made it out all right. One day I’ll show you the scars.”

She winks at that and you feel yourself flushing. Was that flirting? Is Elena Fisher _flirting_ with _you_!?

“You know, I wasn’t really expecting a career as a cameraman to be as dangerous as you’re making it sound,” you say, laughing and trying to banish the mental images that Elena Fisher’s words have brought to the forefront of your mind. You’ve only known her for a few minutes and you’re already imagining her topless? Jesus, that’s unprofessional. Get a hold of yourself.

“Don’t worry,” she tells you, gently, ever-so-playfully punching your shoulder in camaraderie. “I’ll protect you. You’re not getting shot on my watch.”

She smiles at you, the lights in her eyes dancing, and you can’t help but smile back.

And in that moment you realise you have already fallen in love with Elena Fisher.

* * *

She _does_ show you the scar.

You have only been working together for a few days, and the two of you have been talking about her time in Tibet in greater detail when it happens.

She keeps getting this funny little smile on her face whenever she mentions one of her travelling companions, one ‘Nathan Drake’ and you try not to let it worry you too much.

You get the feeling she’s been deliberately leaving out a lot of information as well. She told you at the beginning that she would be; that a lot of what had happened was literally unbelievable.

“I can barely believe a lot of it myself,” she says, her hands wrapped around her coffee as she brings it up to her mouth to take another sip. “I mean, you go in expecting gunfire and explosions, maybe a destroyed statue or two. You don’t expect... well...”

She lifts her drink to her mouth at that moment, and she’s talking over the rim of the cup so what she says next is muffled, but it sounds a little like ‘blue yeti people’. That doesn’t make any sense at all though, so you obviously didn’t hear correctly.

“What?” you ask once she has finished drinking.

“Oh, I said that I would show you the scar one day, didn’t I?” Elena says, and if she was hoping that you wouldn’t notice the abrupt topic change then she was wrong.

You wish you could say that you let it slide and that you keep your cool, but instead you nearly choke on your own drink because oh god, you didn’t think she was actually _serious_ about that.

Elena passes you a napkin for the warm drink that is now making its way down your chin and staining the previously unstained fabric of your blouse, and then leans back in her own seat.

You’re in the break room at work, and no-one else is around, but you still glance backwards and forwards around the room as Elena grabs the fabric of her own top and starts to roll it up, almost as though the two of you are up to something far dirtier or more supicious than Elena just showing you her scar.

“Oh my god,” you exclaim as you catch sight of the patch of red, marred skin that seems to cover half of Elena’s torso. It’s much bigger than you were expecting, and the thought of Elena being that badly injured, and being in that much pain, makes your stomach twist in a very uncomfortable manner. The scar is still an angry red as well; fresher, having not quite healed yet, and you’re reaching out as though you intend to touch it before you know what you’re doing.

You pull your hand back when it is hovering barely an inch away from Elena’s skin. You look up to find the other woman staring at you with a curious half-grin that you can’t quite decipher.

“You said that it was nothing!” you say when you have managed to recover enough to speak once more.

She shrugs.

“That is _not_ nothing,” you tell her.

She has this faraway look on her face, and for a moment you’re afraid that she is going to say that she has been through worse, and the thought that it might be true is even worse than the sight of that scar.

“When you’re in the heat of the moment,” she begins to softly say, “you sort of have to brush it off sometimes. You can’t... I guess you can’t really let yourself acknowledge how bad things are when the world is quite literally falling apart around you.”

Despite what she is saying, she manages a smile, although it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She pulls her shirt back down, and you can’t help but notice that the two of you are quite deliberately not making eye contact.

“I got out alive,” Elena concludes. “And I’m grateful for that.”

* * *

The two of you work amazingly well together. The stories that you cover with Elena are infinitely more interesting that anything you have worked on before, and she instinctively knows how to work with the camera, and what to say. She started off small enough that she would sometimes have to do her own footage, and it shows. She never asks for an impossible shot, and always does what she can to make your life as her cameraman relatively easy.

It’s great, and _she_ is even greater. She always looks amazing, and she has this wicked sense of humour that matches your own surprisingly well. The two of you laugh more often than you think you would with any other reporter, and you manage to stay away from any assignments that are too dangerous, at least for the time being. You have a feeling that it’s only a matter of time where Elena Fisher is involved, and it’s all you can do to hope that when danger finds the two of you, it isn’t as bad as it was in Tibet.

In short you make a great team. You’ve worked out by now though that it’s all you will ever be. The ‘Nathan Drake’ that Elena spent so much time talking about turns out to be her boyfriend. You can’t quite work out whether that was the case before Tibet as well, but it is certainly the case now. The relationship seems complicated, but one thing seems crystal clear to you; Elena has Drake. There is no room there for you.

This becomes even more clear when one day Elena comes into work with a huge smile on her face. She is wearing an engagement ring, one which she shows off to the entire office, and she embraces you tightly in joy when she tells you the news.

You force yourself to not be disappointed. You try not to linger too long on what you cannot have. You go on a few dates with other women, but none of them last very long, and you always have to return to work the next day, where Elena is right there in front of your camera; always beautiful and perfect and in love with (and now engaged to) someone that is not you.

* * *

Something goes wrong though.

One day Elena storms into the studio, clutching her mobile phone as though it has somehow managed to personally offend her. Her knuckles are red, and so are her eyes. She looks as though she is two seconds away from bursting into tears.

“God damn it!” she exclaims as soon as the door is closed behind her.

Before you can ask what’s wrong she throws the phone across the room and slumps to the ground, tucking her knees up to her chest and resting her head against them.

You rush to her side and kneel down in front of her.

“Elena?” you ask softly, gently reaching out to touch her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

It’s a stupid question. She is very clearly _not_ okay.

And then she’s clinging to you, her hands tangling in the fabric of your shirt and her head on your shoulder as she softly cries. You do what you can, wrapping your arms around her and wishing that you could somehow stop those tears from running down her face.

“I just...” she mutters between sobs. “I just can’t do this anymore.”

Do what? You’re not sure what she’s talking about, but you have a sneaking suspicion it has something to do with Drake. There’s been too many angry phone calls and texts between the two of them over the last month or so, and Elena has walked into work looking as though she has barely slept all too often lately.

“It’s going to be all right,” you tell her, because you don’t know what else you _can_ say. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

“No,” she mumbles into your shoulder. “No it’s not. He’s going to cross the wrong people and get himself killed. I know it.”

Ah. So Nathan Drake _is_ responsible for this. You’ve never met the man, but you hate him for being the reason for Elena’s tears.

“I’m breaking up with him,” Elena tells you. She doesn’t have to say a name.

A small, selfish part of you rejoices at the news, and you hate yourself for it. There is no desire on earth strong enough to justify making Elena Fisher sad, and Nathan Drake is an idiot for not realizing that.

The two of you sit there on the floor together, your arms around her and her head on your shoulder, until the crying has stopped and Elena is strong enough once more to face the day. You whisper what words of encouragement and comfort you can summon, and fear that it is not enough.

* * *

It takes Elena a while to get over him. After a couple of months she acts like she has finally managed to stop worrying about him. After a couple more her smiles are genuine enough that you start to believe that maybe she actually _has_.

It’s good to see, and not just because you are still a little jealous of the man that managed to steal Elena’s heart, but because Elena has enough to worry about in her own life without having to worry about the misadventures of her overgrown man-child of an ex.

You do not hold any hope for your own chances with Elena. Yes, she is single now, but the last thing she needs is her best friend at work being creepy and attempting to hit on her, so you don’t say anything. You force yourself to put your crush (it’s more than that; you know it is, but you won’t allow yourself to admit it) aside as much as possible.

You shouldn’t pine for her. You should not still want her, no matter how many times she smiles and laughs at something you have said, or embraces you and holds you for just a little too long, or touches you when there’s really no need for her to.

Without Drake in the picture you can’t deny that there is definitely something building between the two of you. In a way you wish that there wasn’t, because it’s getting harder to dismiss the idea that maybe, just maybe, Elena wants you as well.

It’s preposterous. Elena is incredible. She is too good for you. Besides, she has already made it very clear that she is interested in men.

But one day, as soon as the camera stops rolling, she reaches out to ever so gently brush a stray strand of hair back behind your ear, smiling softly at you as she does, and it becomes impossible to deny the fact that there really _is_ starting to be more between the two of you than can be accounted for by friendship alone.

* * *

It comes to a head when Elena is offered her next long term assignment. They want her to go to Yemen, not to cover a war or a coup or anything so short term, but to stay there as a foreign correspondent for an as yet undetermined period of time.

“The studio won’t let me take you with me,” Elena groans, leaning back in her chair and looking as upset as you are by this revelation.

“Why?” you immediately respond, slamming your hands down on the table.

“Apparently it’s too much of a risk to have two single women travelling alone over there,” Elena responds with a pronounced frown. “They want to send a guy with me instead. Probably someone big and intimidating and a total bore. They’re probably hoping he’ll scare off any locals that start getting a little too friendly.”

You hope that your replacement does exactly that.

“What, they think that I can’t protect you?”

You’re only half joking, but Elena chuckles at that regardless.

“I think you’d get into just as much trouble as me,” she says, turning to give you a quick up-and-down inspection. Her lingering gaze combined with her words is just enough to make you blush, and you turn away, pretending to be annoyed.

“Come on,” she says. “You’re just as pretty as I am. The guys in Yemen would go crazy for you.”

No. There’s no way that’s right. She can’t possibly think that. Elena is beautiful. You’re just... you. You don’t think she’s joking though, and the thought that Elena Fisher, the woman that you have been secretly pining for, might find you attractive is enough to make you blush so deeply that you have no choice but to turn away so that the woman in question will not see how embarrassed her words have made you.

There is a moment during which you think that it wouldn’t be completely weird if you were to lean over and kiss her. Elena’s eyes dilate as you look at her, and you suddenly become aware of how close you are standing next to her.

The moment passes though, and then Elena is looking away with a definite blush on her cheeks. She coughs, and is very careful to look anywhere but at you for the next few seconds.

* * *

There is less than a week between that scene and when Elena is due to leave, and they pass all too quickly. Neither of you have mentioned the almost-kiss, and there has been a strange sort of awkwardness between the two of you that you absolutely hate. You miss the easy camaraderie that existed between the two of you before then.

You drive her to the airport, and help her with her bags, and despite the awkwardness you are reluctant to leave her side, even as the two of you approach the screening area.

You know that Elena is walking into danger again, and you can’t help but wonder if this is the last time you’ll see her alive.

She’s smart. You know she’s smart. She’s done her research and has told you that she plans to wear her engagement ring while in Yemen. You hope that it is enough to keep her safe. You hope that the camera man they’re sending with her (some big, tough, vaguely middle-eastern looking guy that looks as though he could pick you up using only one arm) is indeed enough to scare away anyone that would try messing with Elena, but even his presence is not enough to banish the fear.

“Stay safe,” you tell her. _Come back to me_ , you don’t say, because that’s just a little _too_ possessive, although you think it in the privacy of your own mind.

God, you’d do anything to keep the amazing woman in front of you from harm. You’re almost tempted to pack up your things and follow her to Yemen, job or no, and maybe if you were Nathan Drake, or someone else that was worthy enough to feel this possessive and protective over someone as perfect as Elena then you would, but as things stand all you can do is stand there and keep a tight hold on that other part of you that wants to run after Elena and hold her close and never let go.

“You too,” she says in response, and then she pauses, as though she can’t quite decide whether or not to say something. The moment passes quickly however, and then she’s smiling again and waving.

“Make sure you don’t go on too many adventures without me, okay?” you tell her.

“No promises,” she replies.

She turns and waves once more, and then you get that strange feeling again, as though this might be the last chance that you have to tell her, and then there’s nothing to do but run after her.

“Wait!” you call out, and she has just enough time to turn around before you’re throwing yourself at her and pressing your lips against hers.

You pour every ounce of love you have ever felt for her into that kiss. Your eyes are closed, so you can’t see her immediate reaction, but after a few terrifying seconds of her standing there completely frozen, she wraps her arms around your shoulders and starts kissing you back.

Oh god. She is just as amazing at kissing as she is at everything else, and your knees go weak, even before the thought finally sinks in that this is really happening. Oh god, this is really happening. _Elena Fisher_ is kissing _you_ and it’s the most amazing feeling in the world.

Eventually you part, and seeing Elena with her lips and cheeks flushed from kissing you is enough to take your breath away.

“Sorry,” you tell her. “I was just suddenly worried that it might be the last chance I had to do that.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Elena says, placing a hand on the side of your face, and smiling, and oh god... Her touch is so gentle and her smile is so beautiful and you feel like you’re breaking apart.

“Hey, maybe once this is all over I’ll come back to you and actually do something about all... this.”

She gestures between the two of you vaguely as she says those last few words. You know what she is getting at. Neither of you have quite worked out what you are just yet, but it is surely more than friends.

You watch her as she turns to leave, trying to calm your racing heart and hoping that you aren’t blushing as much as you fear you are. Just before she reaches the scanner Elena turns and waves at you once last time, and the smile she gives you is simultaneously as bright as the sun and heartbreaking in how much it seems to reflect the turmoil in your own heart.

* * *

The two of you never get the chance to work out what you are. Nathan Drake manages to interfere again.

Somehow he found her while she was in Yemen, and whatever happened there was enough to bring the two of them back together.

You try to be happy for her. You try your hardest, but it’s not enough.

Elena invites you to the wedding, but you don’t go. You tell yourself (and Elena) that it is only the fact that she and Nate have decided to have an island wedding, and guests are expected to fly to Fiji, that keeps you away, but it’s a lie. You both know that you could easily afford it, and Fiji sounds absolutely lovely, but you just can’t bring yourself to do it. You can’t just sit there and watch as Elena ties herself to this strange, dangerous man that keeps stealing her away from you.

Elena smiles sadly at you when you tell her you can’t go. You wonder if she knows, and you quickly make up something about Debbie giving you a special assignment around the date of the wedding. You hope that Elena believes it and tell yourself that you _will_ make sure you have work to do at the time of Elena and Nate’s wedding if it kills you, but Elena’s sad smile doesn’t disappear.

Damn it. Why did she have to be so good at reading you? She knows. You know that she knows.

She reaches out wordlessly and cups the side of your face with one hand. Then she leans in slowly, and ever so gently presses her lips against yours. The kiss is chaste, not at all like the one that you shared before she left for Yemen, and it leaves you aching at the thought that there will never be more than this between the two of you.

When you pull away she looks just as sad as you feel, and for just a moment you consider throwing caution to the wind and telling her how you feel, finally saying those three little words that have been hovering around in your mind since approximately two minutes after you met her, but you can’t do that to her. It would be cruel when she is about to walk off and marry someone else, and so you say nothing at all.

* * *

The wedding is beautiful. You knew that it would be. Fisher (and you are glad that she has chosen to keep her last name. It would break your heart if she gave that up for this man as well) passes the photos around the studio and of course she and Drake both look absolutely perfect in all of them.

The wedding and honeymoon together took just over two weeks. You spent the entire time working as much as possible, taking whatever jobs Debbie could give you, and doing whatever you could to distract yourself; to not think about the fact that half a world away the woman you love was having the time of her life with the man that _she_ loves.

You will not allow yourself to be jealous. You will not allow yourself to be sad either. You have no right to be.

Elena deserves this. She deserves to be happy. She probably deserves someone a little better than you as well, and you hope that this Nathan Drake _is_ better, because if he doesn’t treat her right this time around then you swear you will kick his ass.

You hope that nothing between the two of you will change, but inevitably it does. Elena stops going out into the field so much. Apparently she and Nate had both agreed that they needed to stop putting their lives at risk, and for that at least you are grateful.

It means that you see less of her though. After all, she might be spending most of her time safe either at the station or at home, but you’re travelling more than ever now, following other reporters into the depth of the jungle or hiding out on the edge of war-zones with reporters that _are not Elena_ , and doesn’t that just feel a little bit wrong at first?

You don’t do anything quite as daring or dangerous as Elena and her new husband however. The worst injury you sustain is a broken arm, and that’s because you were dumb enough to fall down a steep slope in Borneo. You wish that there was a more exciting story behind it, but Elena is kind enough to send you flowers and a get well card while you are recovering, and that’s something at least.

Elena meanwhile channels all of her energy into writing. She excels at it, just as she does with everything else, and you read everything that she writes; be it a newspaper article or a travel guide.

She still travels occasionally. You travel all the god damn time. Your paths very rarely cross anymore, and you start to think that perhaps this is for the best. Perhaps like this you will finally be able to get over her.

* * *

Then one day you’re both in town for the company Christmas party. Elena is there, looking stunning even though she is just wearing the sort of button up blouse and trousers that she would for the camera. Her husband Nathan Drake lurks behind her, and damn it, he looks every bit as handsome and charismatic as he did in the wedding photos.

It’s the first time you’ve met him, and he smiles and shakes your hand. Elena glances between the two of you nervously, and you can tell that she _really_ wants the two of you to get along. You force yourself to smile at the man in front of you, and he smiles back. His smile, unlike yours, appears to be genuine.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Drake tells you, and he shares a look with Elena before his attention shifts back to you. There’s something going on there that you’re missing, but you have no time to contemplate it, because the next thing you know Elena is whisking you away, one of her arms tucked comfortably around yours.

“I’ve missed you,” she tells you.

You glance back at Nathan Drake, who is still standing in the corner where Elena left him, looking a little awkward in his suit and also a little lost as he glances around the room in search of someone to talk to.

Within minutes Drake has his own small crowd of admirers, and he’s charming them with some sort of story about a French chateau and monstrous spiders (half of which must be made up, surely) and Elena is still clinging to your side, smiling over at you and asking you a thousand different questions about what you have been up to since you saw her last.

It’s strange to have all of her attention focused on you when the man that you have been jealous of for years now is standing in the same room as the two of you. It throws you off balance, and you remain that way for the rest of the night.

Damn it. Why did this have to happen right when you were finally starting to get over Elena? Now, with her warmth pressed against your side and her smile right there, waiting for you every time you turn your head, you find yourself getting caught up in fantasies that you haven’t thought about for months now; images of Elena being with _you_ instead of Drake, or of the two kisses that you have shared.

Nathan Drake stays just long enough for his leaving to be polite. He says goodbye to Elena, placing a kiss on her cheek as he does, and as the two of them pull back they share another one of those looks. They glance at you and then whisper backwards and forwards for a while, and you are honestly a little annoyed when you realize that they might be talking about _you_.

Regardless, Drake disappears and Elena’s attention is entirely yours once more.

Why?

What has caused this?

You both have a couple more drinks than you probably should, and as the night winds down and people begin to disappear, Elena drags you into a secluded corner, wraps her arms around you and just holds you for a moment. You freeze, not sure what is happening, and hating the fact that you love the feeling of her body pressed against your own this much.

“I’ve missed you,” Elena tells you again, although this time her words are slurred.

She pulls back from where her head had been resting against your shoulder and looks up you with wide, dark eyes.

“Missed you so much,” she repeats.

Her arms move up so that they are draped around your neck, and she’s moving closer, and that look in her eyes tell you that she is about to kiss you even if her actions had not already done so. You should stop this. This is wrong. Elena is married.

“I love you,” she whispers, those three words making any chance you might have of resisting disappear in a moment.

It’s hard to tell which one of you initiates the kiss. Your lips meet in a passionate, drunken, unco-ordinated mess. For a moment you worry that someone else at the Christmas party might see what is happening, but the few who are left are more drunk than yourself and Elena combined, and not likely to remember anything the next morning, including the sight of Elena pressing against you and kissing you until you feel like you can’t breathe anymore.

* * *

The rest of the night is a blur of fumbling hands and heated kisses. Somehow you make it back to your place, and before long your entire world is taken up by the sight of Elena hovering over you, lips and cheeks stained pink with desire, the feeling of her lips as they press against your own, or roam lower to ghost over bare breasts and stomach, or of her hands as they caress and thrust and slowly break you down into a mindless, mewling mess.

* * *

In the morning your first thought is that it had all been a dream, and you take a moment to curse your own subconscious for teasing you with such a wonderful, impossible dream. But then Elena shifts a little, and there’s no mistaking the warmth of her body as it presses against your side, or the slide of the leg that is draped over and between your own.

One of her hands moves slowly down your side and gently squeezes your hip.

“Morning,” Elena mumbles into your shoulder.

No. This can’t be happening. Elena is _married_. For a moment the guilt is so bad that you feel as though you’re going to be sick.

Elena runs a hand down your side again in what is probably meant to be a comforting gesture, her hand once again settling on your hip, where it rubs gentle circles into the skin there. 

“You okay?” she asks you, suddenly a lot more awake and alert than you had thought.

You look up at her and discover that her bright blue eyes are staring down at you with more love and concern than you think anyone has ever shown you before, and you realize that you can’t deny this woman anything. So what if this is just an affair? If it means that you get to be like this with Elena then that’s worth throwing a few of your morals aside, isn’t it?

“Yeah,” you say. “I just can’t believe last night actually happened.”

And that’s the truth. The fact that Elena is laying in your bed, her naked skin pressed against your own, is completely unbelievable, and you’re still afraid that you’re going to wake up at any second. 

“You don’t regret it, do you?” Elena asks you.

“No,” you say without hesitating. This is also the truth. Dirty little secret or no, you do not regret sleeping with her. In fact, you would do it again in an instant.

It’s a point of view that proves to be of great relevance, because you are only curled up together like that for a few minutes before Elena’s hand sneaks lower, over your thigh and then between your legs, and then you’re repeating the events of the night before, this time without the benefit of being able to blame it on the alcohol.

You arch into her touches and caress every inch of her, placing kisses on her lips, and shoulders, and neck, and then lower, where you linger for a long time, savoring her taste and the sounds of pleasure that continue to erupt from her throat.

It is heaven, and you force yourself to ignore the voice at the back of your mind that insists on pointing out how wrong this is. Elena is married, but for a few moments at least she is yours.

* * *

You wish that you could say that it’s just the one time, that you were strong and did not go back for more, but this new aspect of your relationship with Elena is like a drug. Any time you’re both free and in the same city it seems that you end up together somehow, and Elena even convinces you to sneak off for a quickie while at work a couple of times. Not that you needed all that much convincing. Elena is still the most beautiful, perfect woman you’ve ever known, and the two of you seem to fit together so well that you can never think of a good enough reason to say no to her.

Before long there is no denying that this has become A Thing. You are Elena’s lover now, and while it is not quite what you were imagining when you started to fantasize about being in a relationship with her, it is enough that you have no desire at all to end it.

More than once Elena mentions how she wishes the two of you could work together again, but it is not going to be. She works in print now. There is no room for a camera operator in the pages of her travel guides.

You still make enough excuses to see each other though. Everyone knows that the two of you have been friends for a long time as well, so no-one questions it.

For a long time everything is good. Even your guilty conscience can’t quite convince you that anything is wrong.

* * *

And then one night, when you and Elena have already been sleeping together for months, she sends you a message asking if she can come over, and you immediately frown. Elena never texts when she can call.

Something is wrong.

When you open the door for her and see the look on her face you know straight away that she and Nathan Drake are having problems again. After all, he is the only one who could ever hurt her this much. Then your heart starts to beat uncomfortably fast in your chest as you wonder if maybe he found out about the two of you, and that’s the reason why Elena is upset. Maybe she has come to end the affair.

“Please no,” you mutter, realizing too late that the words have actually sneaked out from between your lips.

You run over to stand in front of Elena and take one of her hands in your own. You ache to wrap your arms around her, but hold back, knowing that such an action might not be appropriate depending on why exactly she has come to see you.

“What is it?” you ask her.

“It’s Nate,” Elena tells you. No surprises there.

“I thought we had...” Elena begins, and then breaks down, falling into your waiting arms, clinging to your shirt and crying her eyes out on your shoulder.

Now you do wrap your arms around her, holding her close and then guiding her over to your couch, where you continue to hold her until the crying has subsided. You have no idea what Drake has done this time to upset her, but your heart goes out to her nevertheless. You wonder for a moment whether the idiot has actually managed to get himself killed, and hope that isn’t the case. You might be jealous of his relationship with Elena, but you wouldn’t want him dead. You don’t know if Elena would be able to take it for one, and he didn’t seem all that bad. Not really. There must be something to him if Elena loves him as much as she does.

Elena goes through a couple of tissues, but eventually the crying stops, leaving her face and eyes red. She moves back from your arms a little, but one of her hands still clings desperately to one of your own, and you intertwine your fingers in silent support.

“We agreed that we weren’t going to do anything dangerous anymore,” Elena finally says. “But now I find out that he’s lied to me and gone off on another crazy treasure hunt, and I don’t know what bothers me more; the fact that he’s gone off like he has or the fact that he felt the need to lie about it.”

She turns to face you, and the pure worry and pain that you see there is enough to break your heart.

“Why would he lie?” she asks. “How bad is this mess that he’s gotten himself into that he thought he had to hide it?”

She takes a deep breath, and then leans into you again. You wrap your arms around her once more, and slowly run your hands through her hair, hoping you can at least give her some comfort.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “You probably don’t want to hear all of this.”

“It’s all right,” you tell her. “You needed to talk to somebody about it all.”

For a moment neither of you say anything. You just sit there on the couch, Elena basking in your gentle touches.

“What are you going to do?” you eventually ask her.

“I think I’m going to go after him,” she says, not sounding particularly happy about it. “I have to.”

“But you just said that he’s probably doing something dangerous,” you point out. “What if...?”

What if Elena gets hurt again?

She pulls away from you slowly, and looks down at you, a brave smile on her face.

“I’m sorry,” she tells you, “but I think I have to.”

* * *

Elena has a ticket to Madagascar before the two of you go to sleep that night.

You drive her to the airport, and this time you do whisper “come back to me” into Elena’s ear as you hold her and then kiss her goodbye.

* * *

It isn’t like Yemen though. She and Nathan Drake come back after only a few days, and when they do it is clear that something has changed. There’s a strange sort of energy behind Elena’s words when she talks to you. You don’t yet know what happened in Madagascar, but whatever it was seem to be for the best. Maybe one day Elena will even tell you what happened.

As it is now though Elena seems almost too busy to talk to you. She has been back for two weeks before you manage to meet up again, and this time it is at her insistence.

You have that small, nagging fear once more; that Elena wants to talk to you because she has finally decided to end the affair, but when you meet up with her at a small cafe that you both love she is grinning from ear to ear. Her face does not look like the face of someone about to break up with their lover.

She gestures to the seat across from her hurriedly and you sit down, wondering what is happening. You both order drinks and cake, but Elena doesn’t even wait for the drinks to arrive before she is launching into a full recount of everything that happened in Madagascar. It is a tale of dead pirates, and treasure, and mercenaries, and like some of her other stories it’s hard to believe that it all really happened. There is so much conviction and detail in her retelling though that you know it all to be true.

“And so now,” she continues, the grin on her face returning once more, and you can tell that whatever she is about to say, it’s hard for her to keep it in. This is clearly the bit that she has been excited about ever since you walked into the cafe.

“We’re going into business for ourselves,” Elena reveals. “We’re tossing around a few ideas but I think the name we’re going with is DF Fortunes. It means that we still get most of the excitement but without the illegality or the gunfire.”

“That sounds great,” you tell her, and you mean it. 

It’s great that Elena and her husband have managed to work out such a convenient compromise, and it’s great that she and Drake won’t be putting themselves into danger so much anymore, but you can’t quite summon the same amount of enthusiasm as her. You’re not even sure why she felt it was so important that she tell you all of this.

“I haven’t even told you the best part yet,” Elena says, leaning forward on the table, her grin growing impossibly wider. “We need a cameraman.”

Oh. Well that explains why she wanted to talk to you.

“I’m offering you a position with DF Fortunes,” she tells you, clasping her hands in front of her and looking as though she is even more excited by the news than you are. “Be our cameraman?”

You don’t know what to say. The thought of working with Elena again is a very appealing one, but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be particularly easy. After all, you would be working with Nathan Drake as well, watching as he and Elena act all couple-sy together and trying to pretend that you weren’t insanely jealous of that stability.

“I promise you it wouldn’t be too dangerous,” Elena says, misreading the meaning for your hesitation. “No pirates or mercenaries or anything, and it’s all going to be completely legal and above board.”

“What about Nathan?” you ask her when you can finally find the words.

“What about him?”

“Aren’t you worried that he’ll find out about us?”

“About... us?” she says, looking a little confused. She tilts her head and looks at you as though she can’t quite figure out what you’re talking about, and then a wide grin breaks out on her face. She looks as though she might break into laughter at any second.

“He’s your husband,” you point out. “He’s bound to be upset if he works out what the two of us have been up to behind his back.”

You know that you would be. You think it’s probably hypocritical considering you are the home-wrecking ‘other woman’ in this scenario, but oh well. Your point remains. The last thing you want is to cause a rift in Elena and Nate’s relationship.

“Behind his back?” Elena repeats, and now... oh god. Now she actually _is_ laughing.

“Oh my god, did you think that I was cheating on him with you?”

“Well, you kind of...”

She had been, hadn’t she? Just because he was okay with it didn’t mean...

“We’ve got an open relationship,” she explains. “Well, sort of. We’re allowed to see other people as long as we tell each other about it.”

“Tell each other about it?” you repeat, and you’re more than a little embarrassed by how dumbfounded you sound. Has Elena been telling Nate _everything_?

“Yeah,” Elena replies, sounding as casual as though you’re talking about the weather, and not at all as though she has completely shifted the paradigm of your relationship as far as you are concerned.

This isn’t just an affair anymore. Before, it was something dark and secret that had to be hidden away, and you were sure that it was going to end one day. Hell, you had already been emotionally preparing yourself for it. But now... now there might be a future in this, and sure, you’ll never be her _husband_ but you’ll still be something to her. It’s amazing; more than you ever thought you would be able to have while Drake was still in the picture.

It really is amazing, and once the shock has worn off you find yourself grinning from ear to ear.

“Nate wants to meet you by the way,” Elena tells you. “Well, meet you again at any rate; as my girlfriend this time, rather than as my friend from work.”

And you try to imagine that; walking up to Nathan Drake and shaking his hand, maybe introducing yourself with “hi, I’m the woman who is sleeping with your wife,” and the very thought is enough to make you blush.

“Hey, wait a moment,” you say, as all of the furtive glances and whispering at the Christmas party come back to you. “Did he know that you were... uh, that you planned to...”

“That I was going to try to seduce you at the Christmas party?” Elena says, and how can she just come out and say it so casually is beyond you. “Yeah, he did. He’s known about us this whole time.”

Elena is watching you, and she grins in that way that makes her nose wrinkle and her eyes sparkle, and you think that it will be fine. You will meet Nate, you will talk to him, and you will make it clear that if he ever hurts her again then you will hunt him down to the ends of the earth, because no-one hurts your girlfriend.

Because that’s what she is now, isn’t it? Elena is your _girlfriend_ , not just someone that you’re pining over. Not just a work friend. Not just the other half of a love affair that was doomed from the start. Your girlfriend. You get to stay with her. You get to stay with this beautiful, wonderful, smart, funny, amazing woman and you don’t even have to hide it anymore.

“I love you,” you tell her, because at that moment your feelings for her are far too powerful to contain.

“I love you too,” she says, and then the two of you are both leaning forward, your lips meeting in a long, tender kiss.


End file.
